Genocide and War Crimes in National Courts

Genocide and War Crimes in National Courts: the Conviction of Rios Montt in Guatemala and its Aftermath

After nearly two months of riveting testimony and procedural rollercoasters, a trial court in Guatemala on May 10, 2013 found former president Efrain Rios Montt guilty of genocide and war crimes under Guatemalan law and sentenced him to a total of eighty years in prison. The court acquitted his military intelligence chief, Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez.

Ten days later, on May 20, 2013, the country's Constitutional Court (the highest court) annulled the verdict and the last part of the trial based on alleged violations of the defendants' due process rights, sending it back to the trial court. The defendants were on trial for crimes committed in the northern Quiche area of Guatemala against the Ixil Maya people during 1982-83, the height of Guatemala's thirty-year long armed conflict.

ThisInsightprovides an assessment of the Rios Montt trial, the first time that a former head of state had been convicted of genocide in a national court.